Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The Future of Ham Radio (where do you want to go) ?

Okay, Wade KF5IF brought up some good points last night at the Broken Arrow Amateur Radio Club. And while I probably made my usual sarcastic commentary along with them (sorry Don and Kat) , I did take them to heart.

They'll take years to implement. I think I could do some of the training of new and existing hams. After all, I've been exploring this great hobby for almost a decade.

Which leads me to my point of this post. Where area we going ? What do we want to do ? Pick a couple and leave some comments. Would you like to see most importantly:

A) Distance you can communicate increase while holding costs constant or falling.

B) Size of equipment continue to decline while holding costs constant of falling.

C) Bandwidth available to the user increase. (ex: data, video, file transfer)

D) Decreasing size of equipment.

E) Increased simplicity (home-brew ? ) of equipment.

F) Interoperability with consumer electronics (ex: USB ports, etc.)

G) Interoperability with commercial equipment (ex: APCO P25 codecs)

H) Off-grid capability.

There, eight plates of food for thought ! Lemme know and I'll write something up.

73
Scott
KD5NJR

4 comments:

Stan(KE5LEP) said...

Scott,
All of these "where do you want to go questions" are technology perspective talking points. My focus is people. Questions would be. How do I make things more user friendly? What new training methods would increase enjoyment. Anyway, Technology changes are one piece of the pie. Applications and group dymanics are another piece.

Unknown said...

Yes, Stan! And, what about community service and training for teenagers in this fine sport?? Should we sponsor a Radio Club at BA High School? What about getting the "Senior Citizens" more involved in radiosport?? A class at the Senior Center?? What's happening in the community in the way of advertising the good things we do???

73, Mac, KE5QDA

Stan(KE5LEP) said...

Mr Mac,
I like the idea of a High School Radio Club sponsorship.
For the Senior Center Project I have an idea that a listening center with multiple headphones preset to normal hearing and another set marked high volume. A station with 4 sets of ear phones would be enough. At that age I don't think advertising or sign up for a "class" is very likely. Finally we are just starting the idea of community hand out materials and have at our last meeting "OKed" the concept. Send anything you come up with to me or any club officer of the BA Club.

KD5NJR said...

Don't get me wrong, people are important. For example, at Field Day the Boy Scouts came through, and honestly, they were NOT impressed by the tiresome pleadings of CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ FIELD DAY, W5BBS CQ CQ CQ...

So, for these folks I think keyboard to keyboard QSOs would resonate with them. Or, something with some instant gratification. Like Echolink.